Dallas Stars Blog

Scouting the Leafs: Toronto has league’s top scorer

Any scouting report on the Toronto Maple Leafs has to start with Phil Kessel.

Controversial Leafs GM Brian Burke made a controversial trade for Kessel in 2009, surrendering draft picks that would land the Boston Bruins Tyler Seguin, Jared Knight and Dougie Hamilton. That didn’t seem like a good swap when Kessel tallied 55 points in 70 games in 2009-10 and 64 points in 82 games last season.

This season, the trade seems to make a little more sense to Leafs fans. Kessel, 24, has 16 goals among 30 points in 22 games, leading the NHL in both categories.

Kessel could become the first Maple Leafs player since Gordie Drillon to lead the NHL in scoring. Read about that here.

Also of interest in goalie Jonas Gustavsson. The diehards will remember Gustavsson throwing out the first pitch at a Rangers game (wonder if he still has that jersey somewhere) when the Stars were wooing him as a free agent. Gustavsson instead signed with Toronto, the Stars went out and got Kari Lehtonen, and the rest is history.

Gustavsson had some trouble with a heart issue, but has gotten that fixed. Still, he is 28-32-11 in his career with a 3.04 GAA and .898 save percentage, so he has not been a dynamic answer for Toronto.

The Leafs are an offensive team anyway, so goaltendending only has to do so much. Toronto ranks fifth in scoring at 3.09 and third in power play success at 22.6 percent. The Leafs rank 24th in goals against at 3.14 and 27th in penalty kill success at 76.5 percent.